This month’s featured painting is Woman Awakening by Eva Gonzalès. What a soft and beautiful painting by one of the lesser-known French Impressionists.
Click here for a high-resolution photo of the painting.
Brief Details About the Painting:
- Oil on canvas.
- 101.5 x 82.5 cm (39.9 x 32.4 inches).
- Completed 1876.
- Location: Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
Your Thoughts?
Use this as an opportunity to test your ability to analyze master paintings. In the comments below, share what you think are the top 3 most important aspects of the painting. These could relate to areas such as composition, color, value, progress, brushwork, subject, or symbolism. Once you have done that, you can compare your thoughts with my own in the drop-down below.
Click here to see my thoughts.
- Thin, purple lines gently suggest and outline the woman’s figure. Gonzales did just enough to convey realism and not a touch more. These lines taper off towards the edges of the painting. This helps focus your attention around the middle.
- Look at the subject’s arm. Notice how soft the highlights and color transitions are. The highlights are just a hint lighter than the mid-tones. This plays into the idea of a smooth, rounded form.
- Dark accents and hard edges make the subject appear softer and more delicate and flowing by comparison. (Remember, painting is all relative. If you want to push one idea, you could do so by making that idea more compelling and prominent. Or, you could restrain the other ideas.)
- There is a subtle color link between the purple flowers in the corner and the purples on the dress and bed.
- The dress looks white, but I think you’ll find the colors are light yellows, purples, and grays rather than pure titanium white. It is our perception that makes the dress appear whiter than it actually is (“color constancy” is the technical term).
Light, shape, emotion
Shape outlined by background. Book leads your eyes, highlightss onthe pillow and covers convey a feeling of softness,
The composition is elegant. I like the spot of the saturated color of the flowers and the rich tones of the table. The subject is rendered with simplicity and yet conveys the sweetness and vulnerability of a resting woman.
I like the wam yellows used to bring you to the focal point -her relaxed sleepy body. These look warmer set against the African violets on the bedside table and violet shadows in the bedding. I really want to know what she is reading!
The surroundings are rather diffused and the subject highlighted so we are drawn to it. I wonder why the night table is well defined as well ? Maybe to convey the cosy set up of the girl’s bedroom and that she probably read before falling asleep ?
I find that it also helps define the mood. Colors also reflect that mood.
All the detail is in the left third of the painting with just traces of those colors in the rest of the scene. I believe that brings the whole painting together. i love the way the light hitting her arm and the bed mimics the pattern in the table, the shadows on the bed tie in the flowers, and her hair brings you back to the table again. it is a simple piece but elegant.
1. Truly does capture the light.
2. Brushwork is loose AND tight giving variety to the texture.
3. Nice use of complementaries – just enough blue in the bedding offsets the orangey skin.
1. Truly does capture the light.
2. Brushwork is loose AND tight giving variety to the texture.
3. Nice use of complementaries – just enough blue in the bedding offsets the orangey skin.
(She has a big butt!)
The first thing is the warm light on the arm leading to her face and contrasting black hair making the focal point ‘pop’. The complementary colours of yellow/gold and purple and leading lines of the secondary focal point/the cabinet with book and colour balance throughout with the pinks/greens. The straight angles and the contrasting curves all give interest too. A beautiful painting.
Find it warm and soft. Love the soft pale colour of the quilt then her black hair hiding within and your eyes are drawn to her pale skin.
I love the warmth of the flesh tones that capture your attention immediately and the way the very soft lines of the bed clothes and bedding direct your eye to her face and exposed upper body.
Love the repeated shades of violet in the flowers and the shading of the bedding as well as the repetition of the color of the night stand and the background wall… very well composed painting.
The use of the yellowish tint and the complementary purple also further enhance the beauty of the painting. Thank you for introducing us to this wonderful artist!!
Woman awakening here might mean a new profound understanding gained from her reading, or a contemplation of a life-altering event, as well as just waking up to a new day. There is an interesting balance between the grounding reality on the left with detailed rendering and the soft almost foggy blending of her clothing with the bedding seamlessly extending to an abstract framing on the right which does not render any information about her surroundings. This is capturing a moment and a place in time. The woman is safe in a world of contemplation, perhaps working out a decision to be made or perhaps contemplating the ramifications of a decision already made. It is a striking example of how those seemingly mundane moments can often be quite significant.
I like your interpretation.
Woman waking up to warmth of sunlit room (glow of light on arm and face) with pensive mood; coloring of face and red lips accent make her the primary focal point; elegance and softness of bed linen, gown and bed curtain depicted with loose brush work; use of complementary colors yellow and purple with white in all of the fabric is unifying factor; secondary focus of color accents of purple flowers, book on night table with detailed accents/design; use of diagonal
lines, dark hair, and choice of background color make this a great composition.
So the big idea is the woman just waking is still sunk in her bed, basically blended with it. The woman and the bed are one. The woman is plump and curvy matching the shapes in the pile of pillows. The exact same colors are used to paint her clothes and the bedding. You are invited to imagine that the woman is soft and that she feels one with the pillows and mattress. She has a very neutral and unfocused expression. In fact, her eyes look in different directions, the one nearest the pillow stares blearily straight ahead, and the one on the right looks awake and aims to the right as if ready to get up. And where is her leg? That’s ambiguous: Is it curled up behind her, or is she already stepping down and out of bed? Another double meaning is the dark shadow under her eye near the pillow: One the one hand, it’s just a shadow that would naturally be there, and on the other hand, it makes her look tired. So her hair rolls vaguely along her back separating her from the background, but then something similar is scribbled between the rest of her body and the wall. I don’t like that part. Something about the shapes and placement of objects in the foreground looks off at first, but on closer inspection makes sense: Why is the book tipped at that angle (oh the nightstand has a little “fence” around the edge that the book is laying on); why isn’t the vase of flowers round? (Oh the bottom of it is covered by the book laying at an odd angle). Maybe this is supposed to duplicate one’s confusion upon first waking. Parts of the painting are in focus: the woman’s face and upper body and the objects on the nightstand, while the bedding and background our out of focus. This accentuates the theme of waking from a deep sleep into the real world.